Ripping means placing your musical CD into your computer’s CD ROM drive and telling the software to copy songs onto your hard drive. Software then compresses those huge files into the much smaller MP3 format. Some All-in-one software, such as Rhapsody or Windows Media Player rips and encodes in one step. Just insert the CD, and select the Rip function and your MP3 files appear on the hard drive.
Ripping
Please refer to the below links at Microsoft for detailed information on how to use WMP 10 and WMP 11 and with very clear videos on how to rip CD.
WMP 11 on Vista
CD Ripping instructions
WMP11 on XP
Video on CD ripping
More information on usage
WMP10 on XP
Video on CD Ripping
Basics and more